91947 - Landscape Aesthetics I

Learning outcomes

The student will receive cognitive tools that allow him to navigate between the different positions that contemporary thinking has produced on the perception of urban space; the student will be able to compare them and produces specific reflections on the possibilities of architecture to affect the configuration of the urban scene.

Course contents

The workshop "Re-qualify the post-war city" (16 CFU) as well as of the characterizing teaching (Architecture and architectural composition III, 7CFU) is also made up of the following teachings: History of the contemporary city (3CFU), Landscape aesthetics (2 CFU), Architectural and urban composition I (2 CFU) and Architecture and urban landscape (2 CFU).

Aesthetics of the "hybrid" city and "urban landscape". The course Landscape aesthetics aims to provide some theoretical background to the analysis of the aesthetic problems of the urban regeneration of the post-war city and to deepen a series of themes related to its realization. First of all, the prospects of a hybrid conception of modernity and the city (by examining Walter Benjamin's aesthetics) and of the landscape (exploring the plausibility of the notion of "urban landscape") will be illustrated. Subsequently, during the workshop's seminar activity, specific insights and bibliographies will be elaborated on the intertwining between historical data and aesthetic values of contemporary urban identity, hybrid and multilayer by definition, so as to help provide the basis to intervene on the complex reality of the historically stratified city. In particular, literary and cinematographic works will be analyzed that have recounted the Italian city of the post-war period and reflected on its problems, in comparison with the developments of the big cities in the world.

Readings/Bibliography

Walter Benjamin and the aesthetics of  modernity:

Parigi, la capitale del XIX secolo (1935), in Id., I “passages” di Parigi, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, Italian edition by Enrico Ganni, Torino, Einaudi, 2002, vol. 1, p. 5-18.

Urban landscape and "third landscape":

Paolo D'Angelo, Filosofia del paesaggio, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2014.

Eugenio Turri, Il paesaggio come teatro: dal territorio vissuto al territorio rappresentato, Venezia, Marsilio, 2010.

Michael Jakob, Il paesaggio, Bologna, Il mulino, 2009.

Gilles Clément, Manifesto del Terzo paesaggio, ed. by Filippo De Pieri, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2016.

Cinema and literary works:

I. Calvino, La speculazione edilizia (1958), Torino, Einaudi, 2016; G. Testori, Il ponte della Ghisolfa (1958), Milano, Feltrinelli, 2013; F. Pecoraro, Lo stradone, Milano, Ponte alle Grazie, 2019; V. Mattioli, Remoria. La città invertita, Roma, Minimum fax, 2019

R. Sennett, Costruire e abitare, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2018; Hao Jingfang, Pechino pieghevole, Torino, ADD editore, 2020; Suketu Mehta, Maximum city. Bombay città degli eccessi, Torino, Einaudi, 2006.

V. De Sica, Miracolo a Milano (1951) and Il tetto (1956).

L. Visconti, Rocco e i suoi fratelli (1960)

F. Rosi, Le mani sulla città (1963)

F. Fellini, Roma (1972)

E. Scola, Brutti, sporchi e cattivi (1976)

G. Rosi, Sacro Gra (2013)

Teaching methods

The course includes 24 hours of lessons

Assessment methods

The workshop "Re-qualify the post-war city" (16 CFU) as well as this characterizing teaching (Architecture and architectural composition III, 7CFU) is also made up of the following teachings: History of the contemporary city (3CFU), Landscape aesthetics (2 CFU), Architectural and urban composition I (2 CFU) and Architecture and urban landscape (2 CFU). The suitability test includes the learning verification of the contents of all the lessons that comprise it and takes place in a single test.

For this type of teaching (Degree Laboratory), the Teaching Regulations provide for a check on the suitability of students to start preparing their thesis. The progress of learning is monitored during the course by means of periodic reviews. The suitability check is carried out in a single test, common to all the modules of the Laboratory, at the end of the Laboratory itself. The aim of the test is to ascertain the individual level of learning achieved, in relation to the contents of all the modules/teachings that make up the Laboratory (C.I.).
At the end of the workshop, each student will have contributed with written and graphic works to the production of a volume containing the results of the activities carried out during the whole workshop. The final aptitude test will take place in the context of a public, collective exhibition of the results achieved in the analysis and design of the various case studies, with a projection of the results achieved, duly commented on by each student for the part of his/her competence. The committee will consist of the entire teaching staff of the laboratory.
The assessment of suitability is based on the weighted application of the following three criteria: knowledge of the theoretical contents and bibliography and acquisition of the instrumental skills (30%), level of in-depth study of the project hypothesis (30%), clarity and effectiveness of the exposition (40%).

Teaching tools

Specific bibliographies to the different research addresses of the lab will be developed during the various lessons, starting with the tools available in the texts indicated in the program, to switch to specialized databases and local documentary funds. The teaching material presented during the lessons is made available to the student in paper or electronic format via the internet, also following the access restrictions, according to the modalities that will be indicated at the beginning of the lab.

Office hours

See the website of Pierpaolo Ascari